The end was in sight by nine o’clock, and it came within a very few minutes of the hour.
“In about three hours from the commencement of the attack, the parapets of the north and south bastions were almost beaten down, the guns were mostly dismounted, and we could plainly see from the main-top of the _Kent_ that the ruins from the parapet and merlons had entirely blocked up those few guns which otherwise might have been fit for service. We could easily discern, too, that there had been a great slaughter among the enemy, who finding that our fire against them rather increased, hung out the white flag, whereupon a cessation of hostilities took place, and the Admiral sent Lieutenant Brereton (the only commissioned officer on board the _Kent_ that was not killed or wounded) and Captain Coote of the King’s regiment with a flag of truce to the fort, who soon returned, accompanied by the French Governor’s son, with articles of capitulation.”
At the moment that the Governor hung out the flag of truce (“waved over their walls a flag of truce,” in the Admiral’s own words) the landward side of the fort was still holding Clive’s soldiers at bay. The firing from the ramparts there continued for some little time after the flag on the Governor’s palace had been lowered.
The formal surrender and giving up of the fort took place at three o’clock in the afternoon. Says Admiral Watson in his dispatch: “I sent Captain Latham of the _Tyger_ ashore to receive the keys and take possession of the fort. Col. Clive marched in with the King’s troops about five in the afternoon.” The _Kent’s_ log notes this: “5.30 p.m. The Fort at Chandernagore fired 21 guns as a salute to H.M. Colours, after being hoisted half an hour before.”
So Chandernagore fell. “It must be acknowledged,” to use the words of Dr. Ives once more, “that the French made a gallant defence, as they stood to their guns as long as they had any to fire. We never could learn how many of their men were killed and wounded on the whole, though they confessed they had forty dead carried from the south-east bastion. The north-east bastion was also cleared of its defenders twice.”
“The fire of the ships,” says the Indian military historian Orme, “did as much execution in three hours as the batteries on shore would have done in several days.” “Few naval engagements have excited more admiration,” says Sir John Malcolm, writing three-quarters of a century afterwards, “and even at the present day, when the river is so much better known, the success with which the largest vessels of the fleet were navigated to Chandernagore and laid alongside the batteries of that settlement is a subject of wonder.” Summing up results, Colonel Malleson says: “The capture of Chandernagore was not less a seal to French dominion in Bengal than it was the starting-point of British supremacy in that province.”